Today was a continuation of the wild patterned cabs that I had started yesterday. I didn’t finish all the rough so that means I will have more to finish up at a later date. Darn 🙂 Ok it was a great time. The Fordite is just way too much fun. The more you grind the cab the pattern changes, I suppose if you keep grinding you could eventually mess things up or wind up without any. lol But once you get a nice pattern and shape its on to polish. The malachite is pretty soft and stains my fingers with black so looks like I’m ready for Halloween. The flowering tube onyx cabs are just a couple of small pieces that had broken off when I was cutting the stone, but they ended up a couple of pretty nice cabs. I haven’t cabbed alot of this material but it always seems to take a good shine. I hate wasting good rock.

Well I hope your weekend was as nice as mine was and thanks for coming by.

Today was a great day for cutting up some rock. The weather was great and everything just fell into place. I had a bit of Fordite, Dino bone, flowering tube onyx and Crazy Lace Agate that were just asking for a little attention. I had never cabbed Fordite and found it to be really easy. The fun was trying to maximize the patterns in the rough. Some are just wild. But oh so much fun..

I was given some really nice dino bone on the Taogem forum from the Taogem himself. Its a really nice agatized slab and it has some amazing cell structure. I had also bought some Berrendo agate nodules and love the bright red colors. This morning I took advantage of the cool morning and cut some the stones.

There’s a new contest on the Taogem forum and I will be cabbing a bit so I can find just the right stone to put in the piece. Its been a lil while since I made a piece by just silversmithing. Lately I have only been setting a stone now and then. This will be interesting. Here are the pictures of the slabs and cabs.

Had to make another trip before they decide to stop selling the Morgan Hill poppy jasper. The house has been sold and they will be moving on. They are getting rid of all they can and letting people go up the hill and dig out what they can. Sadness. Anyways this is what I bought.

Love the orbs in a few pieces, gonna have a great time cabbing them up and sending to my kids and grandkids. Thanks for checking them out!

Ok so I went to visit family and was informed of an estate sale where they were selling Morgan Hill poppy jasper. Its usually pretty expensive so I thought I’ll just go by and see what they’ve got and what I can’t have. ha! It was priced ok and they were saying that they were actually still taking it out of the hill just behind us!.. It was all different colors and since I really didn’t expect to buy much, I didn’t have much cash on me. I gave them all I had tho! Here’s some pics…